A/N: It's just a series of dialogues
I was up at 2 in the morning writing… for what reason, I have no
idea, really, other than that I thought the idea was funny. Like
always, please let me know whether you think this is worth keeping up
here… I really would like to know.

And yeah, I know this kind of behavior doesn't normally go on in reality... I'm just playing around here...

Heh. --

Just to clarify, this story contains
some mild male/male 'interaction', like all of my other stories I
post in this account… so you've been warned. Don't do drugs,
people… it's bad for you. ;)

Chloe is crazy. She's small and
auburn-haired and hazel-eyed, and she told me she was in love with me
two minutes after we met. That didn't change even after she found
out that I swung the other way; in fact, I think it made her even
more obsessed with me than she already was, as if it just added to
her determination that one day she would marry me and we'd live
happily ever after.

Our conversations go something like
this:

"Ash, I love you. You have really
nice eyes."

"Chloe, I love you too, but only as
a friend. Do you understand that?"

"Of course. But I still love you.
You're going to marry me, remember?"

"I don't like girls that way,
Chloe. I like guys."

"I know that. But so what?"

I guess it's kind of flattering- if
annoying, frustrating and tiring- that she's so completely
dedicated to a gay teenager who will never really understand her.
Sometimes, though, I just wish she'd go and find herself a real
boyfriend to keep herself occupied. At least then her endless
declarations of love wouldn't go to waste.

She was very civil when she found out
about the possibility of my liking another guy that went to our
school. Actually, she was delighted to have found something- or, in
this case, someone- that caught my interest, even though it obviously
meant my 'affections' for her might have to be shared.

"What's his name, Ash?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? Why don't you
ask him?"

"I don't want to."

"You don't?"

"No, I do, I just can't,
that's all."

"Are you scared of him?"

"No."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"I'll ask him for you, Ash."

"Really?"

Sometimes I'm not sure whether to be
grateful for such an outgoing friend. Chloe was very tactful about
it; she walked straight up to him and said, "Hi, I'm Chloe. My
best friend Ash has a crush on you. What's your name?"

I watched from a distance, feeling
sort of frozen in place, as he arched one eyebrow at her, obviously
wondering if this was some kind of joke. Chloe just stared back with
those big, innocent hazel eyes of hers until I heard him answer,

"Why?" His tone was icy.

Chloe was
completely oblivious to it. "Because he'd like to know," she
explained patiently.

My black-clad crush turned away from
her dismissively. "If he wants to know, tell him to ask me
himself."

Chloe accepted this without argument,
and twisted around to call in my direction, "Ash, he says that you
should ask him yourself. It's okay. He's really not that scary."

He stopped to look back at her
abruptly, his eyes darting from Chloe to me and back, like he was
wondering if she was truly sane.

And me, I wanted to fade into the
floor tiles.

Chloe watched me expectantly until I
managed to shift and walk away as nonchalantly as possible, as if
maybe I actually had nothing to do with the situation at all. I could
hear her running down the hallway after me a moment later, and then
her voice saying, "Hey, Ash, wait."

"No. I have to get to class."

"But I thought-"

"I said no."

She frowned at me then, but it wasn't
in her personality to tell me she was pissed and then desert me. She
just stopped talking and walked moodily next to me to the next class,
which the two of us shared. She didn't even whisper to me during
class or draw little pictures or phrases on my hands and arms like
she normally did… at least, not before the latter half of the
period.

But of course she didn't give up,
and I wasn't expecting her to. That would be too un-Chloe-like.

She managed to flag him down during
lunch period the next day. I didn't even see him until I caught her
signaling at him, and then I hissed at her, "Chloe, stop it. What
are you doing?"

It was pointless trying to stop her by
then- it was too late.

"Hi," she told him cheerfully once
he'd reluctantly walked over to our table, his hands shoved deep in
his pockets. "I'm Chloe. Remember me?"

He answered her question with a cold,
blank look.

I was wondering
whether he'd notice too much if I snuck away just then.

"This is Ash," Chloe went on,
unperturbed, and pointing at me from the other side of the table.
"He's my best friend."

"Yeah," he said. His voice was low
and quiet and chilly, like maybe he secretly wanted to step on her
face- or maybe I wasn't quite in my right mind then. His eyes slid
over to me. "I think you mentioned him."

"He likes you a lot," Chloe
contributed. "Only he's kind of scared of you, and that's why
he wouldn't talk to you yesterday. "

His brow furrowed a bit as she spoke,
hinting that he was finding this whole situation highly amusing. "I
see."

"She's lying," I choked out.
"Don't listen to her, she's just trying to make trouble."

"No, I'm not," Chloe said
defensively, looking hurt.

The boy didn't say anything. He just
watched the two of us and blinked slowly.

"Chloe," I said between clenched
teeth, trying to convey to her that she was embarrassing me beyond
all reason, but predictably, she didn't catch onto it.

"Why do you wear black all the
time?" she asked him instead.

"Because I want to."

"It looks good on you. I like it.
And I like your eyeliner. I tried to get Ash to wear some once,
because I think he has really pretty eyes, but he wouldn't let me.
We're going to get married one day, you know."

"Oh, really."

"Yeah. He says he only likes guys
that way, but I think he can be gay and like just one girl at
the same time, as long as the one girl is me, you see?"

No answer this time.

"Are you gay? Because Ash will be
really sad if you're not."

"Chloe, for the love of God, shut
up. You don't know what you're talking about." This one came
from me, as I tried make the burning feeling in my cheeks leave.

Chloe was choosing to ignore me. "You
still haven't told Ash what your name is, you know."

He smirked and looked back in my
direction. I wished to die. "I'll tell him when he asks
me."

I stood up abruptly, my chair scraping
across the floor, and walked away.

"Stop, Ash, come back. Please,
Ash…"

I could have forgiven her for that.
Maybe, if she had asked nicely and bribed me with money. But she
didn't, and not only that, the same thing happened the next day,
only not in the lunch room.

Chloe pointed him out in the hallway
on our way to class.

"Look, Ash, it's
that boy you like. Hey, wait, come over here."

He looked up at her first, then over
to me standing next to her. The same subtle smirk from yesterday
crossed his lips.

"What do you want?"

"I like your armbands. A lot. And I
was wondering if you'd talk to Ash."

"Why? Did he say he wanted to talk
to me?"

"No, but I know he does, because he
thinks you're really hot. He told me. I love you, Ash."

I could've strangled her there in
the hallway, I really could have, but I was having some difficulty
breathing at the moment. My face felt like it was on fire.

"Really, now?" he said, raising an
eyebrow at me.

"She's lying to you," I tried to
say, but Chloe interjected before I could fully defend myself,

"Maybe if you'd please just tell
him your name, he wouldn't be scared of you anymore."

"Chloe, I am not scared of him.
Okay? If you say that again, I'm going to kill you."

"I'm not going to tell him my
name," the boy told Chloe, but he was looking at me as he said it.
"Not until he asks me. If you want to talk to me, you should
just do it, and not get her to say everything for you." He
said this last part directly to me.

My hand felt along the door until it
reached the coldness of the doorknob.

"It's locked."

"She locked us in here?"

"Yeah."

"Your little girlfriend is fucking
crazy, you know that? If you don't stop trying to grope me and get
the hell out of my lap, I'm going to die from claustrophobia."

"I'm not trying to grope
you! Do you really think I-"

"Wait." There was a slight
rattling noise as a chain was grasped. "I think I found the light."

A click later, the light of a
dim bulb overhead found me fumbling to rearrange my awkward position.
No wonder he thought I was trying to feel him up. My cheeks were
flame-red.

His entire outfit was black, including
the armbands that Chloe had liked so much and the belts running
between the legs of his baggy pants. His blue eyes were lined thickly
with black. And his hair (black, of course) was arranged in a feral
mess of almost-spikes.

"You like looking at me, don't
you."

"Fuck, I'm going to kill Chloe
when I get out of here. Where'd she go?"

"How am I supposed to know? I'm
locked in here too. You know she's just trying to hook the two of
us up."

"Yeah, I know."

I ceased my banging on the door for a
minute, and the space was filled with an uncomfortable silence. The
other boy was leaning up against one of the walls of the tiny room,
his arms folded, to watch me with a sort of cynical amusement, as if
he already knew that Chloe planned on taking her time on getting us
out of there.

"What?" I snapped. "This isn't
my fault."

"Yeah, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, it is."

"How is this my fault?"

He half-smiled and shrugged. "I
guess your little friend couldn't think of any other way to get you
to talk to me."

"Well, this is none of her business
in the first place. Chloe needs to learn when to leave me the hell
alone, and not fucking lock me in closets with random guys."

I watched as he slowly raised an
eyebrow at me. "According to her, I'm not some random guy."

That's right- you're sexy and
you're beautiful and you're just way too close, and right now I
really hate Chloe for meddling.

"I guess not."

That made him smile again.

"So she's not really lying about
all that shit she tells me?"

"You know she's not."

"Then why won't you just tell me
yourself?"

"Because." This room was too small
for any kind of comfort. I was making sure to stay on the opposite
side of the room from him, and still I was only about three feet
away. "I just don't want to."

"Oh, so you really are scared
of me?" His eyes were laughing at me. Screw him. "I wasn't sure
whether to believe that."

"I'm not."

"So ask me what my name is."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't feel like it."

"That's a lame answer."

I tried the door again, hoping that
Chloe might have discreetly decided to unlock it while we were
waiting. She hadn't.

The other boy was still looking at me
with that all-knowing smirk. I didn't have any choice.

"Fine. What's your name?"

"It's Joseph. That wasn't so
hard, now was it."

He was still laughing at me without
actually doing so, but he extended his hand as he spoke, and I stared
at it.

"You're supposed to shake it,
Ash."

Slowly I reached out and grasped the
hand and shook it a couple of times, and then I forgot to let go.

"Is that really your name?" he
asked.

"No. It's Ashleigh. But I tell
people to call me Ash. At least it's a guy's name."

"There are other guys with the name
Ashleigh. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I guess not."

He laughed a little then, and I pulled
my hand away from his with my face burning with embarrassment.

"Sorry."

Joseph shrugged, still smiling.
"Whatever."

Chloe didn't come back in the next
ten minutes, or the ten minutes after that. I was beginning to
seriously wonder whether she intended to leave us locked in the
janitor's closet all night. If she did, I'd not only kick her ass
when I got out, I'd never speak to her again.

"She's got to let us out
sometime," I mumbled as I slid down the wall to sit slouched on the
floor. "What's she waiting for?"

"She's a girl," Joseph scoffed,
dragging a hand through his unruly mass of thick black hair. "She's
waiting for something steamy to start happening so she can have
something to giggle at."

Knowing Chloe, I didn't doubt the
accuracy of this.

"You're probably right."

Silence.

Joseph played with the edge of his
trenchcoat, his knees drawn up to his chest and his blue eyes
half-lidded with boredom.

"So what are we going to do?" I
asked.

He glanced up at me. "What do you
want to do?"

"I don't know."

"Well, maybe we should think of
something." He stood up slowly, stretching a little. "It's
getting late. My parents won't care when I get home, but yours
might."

"Yeah, they probably will. What do
you think we should do?"

He cast me a strange look. "Well…
we could… give her what she wants, or something."

"What?"

"Well, if she's waiting for
something hot to start happening in here… assuming that that's
what she's waiting for, and assuming she's even still out there
at all…" His gaze turned evil. "I say we give her a show. Like,
pretend that we're getting it on or something."

"What? No!"

"Why not? I think it'll work."

"I don't."

"It's just because you're
scared."

"I'm not scared of you. Chloe was
talking bullshit about that."

"So do this. Just go along with it."

"No. I don't want to. Get away."

"Why?"

"Because I don't even know you,
that's why. I mean, not in a way that counts."

He obviously thought that was funny,
because the next thing I knew, he was laughing at me again.

"All right," I hissed, wanting him
to shut up. "I'll go along with it. I just want to get out of
here."

"Great," Joseph said, looking
pleased that he was getting his own way.

Before I fully realized exactly what
he had in mind, he had leaned forward and smashed his lips against
mine, and grabbed me by the shoulders to pull me closer to him. For
the first couple of seconds I was in shock, and then I must have
blanked out because after that I was kissing him back, hard; and then
I was desperately trying to escape.

I think I kind of fell backward at
that point, and we ended up in a tangle of arms and legs, and his
hair in my face, on the closet floor.

"What was that for?" I
choked out, trying to resituate myself and doing a poor job of it,
considering the way his face and breath were pressed into my neck.

"Mmph." Joseph found a way to sit
up, still halfway-sitting on me but not really seeming to care.

"I thought you said we were just
going to pretend."

"Yeah, well, I lied."

"Why?"

"I wanted to see how you'd react."

"What kind of reason is that?" I
pushed my hair out of my eyes. "You slut."

"What? You can't tell me you
didn't enjoy that."

"No, I didn't. Don't attack me
like that again."

"Whatever. You're a liar. And
you're blushing really hard right now, did you know that?"

That's how Chloe found us. On the
floor, with about two inches of space between us, my face beet-red
and his hair in an even wilder mess.

"I am so sorry, I really
didn't mean to leave you locked up for so long but I accidentally
forgot where I put the- What were you guys doing just now?"

"Nothing." I stood up quickly and
dusted myself off. "Chloe, you're a bitch."

"It was an accident," Chloe
insisted, blinking her big hazel eyes. "I am so, so sorry. I only
meant to leave you in there for a few minutes but I forgot where I
put the key, and then I kind of freaked out, but… So what happened?
Did you talk to him? Did you ask what his name was?"

"Did you not hear me? Why should I
ever speak to you again?"

"Because… because I'm in love
with you."

"That's not going to cut it."

"And because I'm only trying to
help. I have good intentions and that should count for something."

"Well, it doesn't."

"What's his name?" Chloe
persisted.

I sighed. "It's Joseph."

"Joseph?"

The strangest things will delight
Chloe at the strangest times. She squealed like a six-year-old when
she heard his name. And then she jumped on him.

"I love you, Joseph."

I couldn't understand what he was
trying to say because his voice was muffled into her shoulder, but
from the sound of his tone, it wasn't G-rated. Chloe didn't hear
it, though; or else she chose to ignore it.

"Would you like to be my best friend
too?" she asked him sweetly.

Joseph shot me a look, still
struggling to remove her arms from around his neck, obviously asking
me if she was actually serious. I smirked in reply.

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